by J. K. Holt
That set the hook, and she gave them a moment for the inevitable questions. Fish took first jab- “Jane Hearst? I certainly don’t know everyone in this town, but has anyone here heard of her?”
Tess had wondered the same and scanned their faces, curious, though all shook their heads.
“We’ll need to find her then,” Rosie said, half rising from the table as if she intended to start the search immediately. “She would be the best person to tell us more, surely, about whatever this other disease is.”
“That’s the thing- she can’t tell you anything,” Tess said.
Rosie cut her daggers across the table. “And why is that, then?”
“Because she’s dead.” Tess stuck her finger down hard on the additional note she’d added. “I found her not two months further along in the entries.”
“Wait,” Russ interjected. “The one person who noted that this looked like something else, and then presumably wrote to the authorities about it, then turned up dead within two months’ time?”
“Yep,” Tess confirmed. “And a week’s wages says you can’t guess how she died.”
“No! Really?” Emmie said.
“Yep. Drowned. And in the footnote here, the examiner states that she appeared to be a victim of the Blue Plague, which means that sometime between her entry on that man’s death and her own death, the authorities had arrived in town and given it the name.”
“And if they really were from Turand,” Dray said, “investigating the plague, they surely must have known that there were other cases elsewhere that looked similar, given another name already. What did you call it, Tess?”
“Deadening disease,” Tess replied, not needing to check her notes. She doubted she’d ever forget that one.
“But they told us it originated here, from fish caught at the Dimple,” Russ said, brow furrowed in confusion. “They told us it started there. Didn’t they?”
“I’m new here,” Tess acknowledged. “But it seems you’re all pretty cut off from the rest of Alitura. Not a lot of people move here or travel here if they aren’t from here originally, right?”
“Aye,” Ashe responded, “which is why you were such an oddity, coming out to these parts when you could have stayed inland, found a job there.”
Tess ignored the implied question and continued. “So, it’s possible that a disease isolated to a particular town up there might never have been spoken of down here, right?”
“Aye,” several of them replied in unison.
“We aren’t certain of that, though,” Rosie said. “Not yet, not only with some random sentence from a woman whose name we don’t recognize. And if she was killed on purpose, to stop her from telling anyone what she knew, wouldn’t the same people who did it have gone back to the records and erased any trace of evidence? The lampreys are meticulous, we know that. That’s why we’ve only ever been able to operate off of conjectures to this point.”
“I’m not sure anyone would have thought to look there, to be honest,” Tess said, ignoring Rosie’s souring mood as she continued to be contradicted. “I mean, as Ms. Boyner said, it isn’t listed as an official cause of death for any of these people. And even if they had reviewed the book, I think it’s very likely they missed the entry. As I mentioned, her handwriting was horrible- it’s only lucky I can read script that messy because my mother’s was always so bad- I’ve had lots of practice.”
At the mention of her mother, Tess choked a bit on her last words and caught herself. Handily, it seemed as though the rest were too lost in their own thoughts to notice aside from Dray, who cocked an inquisitive eyebrow at her. She ignored him.
“There’s more,” she said.
“Snails, my head hurts,” Russ groaned, dropping his face into his hands
“Then go fetch us some bread,” Rosie said, displacing her foul mood onto her brother, “and quit whingeing.”
“Get it yourself, harpie,” Russ retorted, in no mood to receive it. “I only meant there’s a lot of information being thrown at us right now. It’s hard to digest it all.”
“Let’s take a pause, then, if only to grab some more free food before your mum catches us out,” Ashe suggested.
Russ seemed more inclined to agree with the plan when it was suggested by Ashe- he disappeared to the back room, appearing a moment later with a loaf of half burned bread and a cup of butter.
“Rot, Russ, what’s this then?” Fish said.
“What I could grab that mum wouldn’t whip me for,” Russ said. He cut large hunks of bread at random, handing them around. The unburnt piece he saved for Tess, passing it across the table. He winked at her as she took it, and she snickered in response. The boy would do anything to irritate his sister.
They ate in silence, and once they’d had their fill, Emmie nudged Tess to continue. She sat up straight again and gathered her thoughts.
“Alright, there’s two other things. One you may have noticed, but I’m certain the other you haven’t.”
“Start us off easy, eh?” Russ said.
“Right. So first, if the Blue Plague is actually a disease that someone naturally contracted somewhere, there should be some progression of it noted. You know, what people saw in the early stages, before the victims went all catatonic. But there isn’t. Even in the pamphlets,” she said, spreading the pages out in front of them. “It just lists the symptoms, but no early warning signs. And there was nothing in the death lists from that time that detailed an observer who watched someone go from normal to this. In addition, they’re almost always found wandering outside somewhere. And those who are found in their homes are always, without a family member present.”
“Aye, that’s right,” Ashe said. “No witnesses to the change in behavior was one of the things we caught on to early.”
“I did think you’d have noticed, but I still had to mention it, on the off chance you hadn’t,” Tess said, preempting a conciliatory tone in case she was being interpreted as know-it-all.
“So, what’s the last thing then?” Dray asked.
“Draker Reed, stop stealing her thunder,” Emmie said in a scolding tone. Dray shot her an affectionate glance.
Tess pulled out a map she’d borrowed from the Muddy Gull and opened it on the table, using the charred bread chunks left over on the table to hold it down. At the sight of the map, Ashe’s eyes alit with interest, but Tess corrected him. “It’s just an ordinary map, nothing you haven’t seen before. I’m just going to use it to illustrate something in a moment.”
She leaned forward. “So you were right about one thing- Gowan does have something in his shop everyone’s overlooked.” She pulled out the book she’d nicked from behind Gowan’s herb cases (though, unlike Ashe and Gowan’s scrolls, she had every intention to return it, and soon, before he noticed it was missing). Everyone bent over to inspect it, and Rosie was the first to scoff- she was becoming a bit predictable in her hostile overtures.
“If you think we didn’t notice the Common Diseases book, you’re wrong. But it’s five years too old to be helpful,” she said.
Tess just sat, waiting for someone else to make the connection. It was Dray- half of his mouth crept upwards into a wry grin and his eyes flickered with excitement. “Too old to detail the Blue Plague, yes.”
“But not,” Tess said, “too old to have outlined the deadening disease that Ms. Hearst had mentioned. It still took me a while to find it. It was new then, and that was just one name they had for it. It was also referred to as Luna’s Folly and Grounter disease, all colloquial terms, so it took a while to trace it all out. But ultimately, here’s what I found. First mention of it was here, in Turand, about ten years back.” Tess pointed to the spot at the top left of Alitura where the city lay. “Then, a few years later, it showed up in the Lonely Isles,” she said, tracing her hand right until they found the islands that congested along the northeastern tip of the mainland. “They have the same symptoms listed as the Blue Plague, though in these locations the blame is being placed
on infected rats for being carriers of the disease, instead of fish.”
“So,” Ashe said, leaning forward, “it jumped from here in the lonely isles, down here, to Wharfton,” he swung his finger down until it hit the bottom edge of the map, “in a little under two years?”
“Yes,” Tess confirmed.
“And it didn’t show up in any other places in that time?” Dray asked.
“No, but this book isn’t exactly exhaustive. It really only seems to chronicle more prevalent diseases, which would probably only be noticed in areas where the most people were affected.”
“Cities,” Emmie said.
“Yes, or islands where a large percentage of the population was affected, like the Lonely Isles,” Tess said. “It seemed to have become a pretty large problem up there for a while. I’m still a little surprised that Wharfton didn’t catch whiff of it from there- you seriously don’t trade with them at all?”
“Why would we?” Fish replied. “They’re an island community- they’ve no need of our fish, they catch their own. And anything else they need, they have closer trading partners than us. As do we.”
“So, what do you think is going on then, Tess?” Dray said. “What’s your theory?”
Tess shrugged. “I’m not sure. But if I had to guess, I’d say that with this evidence, it does seem more likely that this is being done by people. And if that’s the case, and if it is the lampreys doing this, I think they’re cleaning up their mess as they go. Maybe they’re looking for something? I’m not sure.”
“Which means they began this work in Turand, followed it to the Lonely Isles, and then migrated down to us,” Fish connected. “Well, aren’t we the lucky ones.”
“Here’s a question: what are the chances that fish would carry a disease that caused the same exact sickness as rats?” Russ mused.
“Pretty remote,” Dray muttered.
“So, why then?” Russ said. “Why start using rats as the explanation and then switch to blaming fish when this started happening in Wharfton? Wouldn’t it have been easier just to continue with the same story? It might have made it all more believable, even, if they told us the rats were carried down on ships from the north. Rot, we certainly have enough rats around here, both on land and on the boats. And then they wouldn’t have had to worry about someone connecting the dots, as Tess here has done, and poking holes in their story.”
The group considered this for a moment before Tess spoke. “Well, actually, I do have a theory about that.”
Ashe threw back his head and laughed. “Of course you do! Let’s have it then.”
“I don’t have any evidence for it,” Tess warned. “And my mind would never have gone there except for things that you and Dray told me.” The brothers exchanged curious glances.
“Think about it,” she urged them. “What has blaming the fish allowed them to do?”
“Of course,” Dray muttered, slamming his hand on the table so hard that it made several of them jump. “Cordon off the Sea Dimple.”
“Precisely,” Tess said, scanning the group for their reactions. “I’m not sure why, but I think they want to keep people away from that area and this was the perfect way to do it. By then it was too late to switch the blame from rats to fish up in the northern areas, so they simply took a chance and hoped that geography and lack of communication between the towns would keep the ruse up. And it has.”
“Cunning little lampreys,” Ashe said in equal measures of disgust and respect.
“Bastards,” Rosie said.
“Rot and sea slugs,” Fish added, for good measure.
Tess finally relaxed, relieved to be done sharing her information and even more happy that they’d taken it as they had, with minds open to the possibilities. She’d spent so much energy piecing it all together that she imagined she’d felt as a painter did upon finishing a masterpiece- proud of what they’ve accomplished but eager for external validation.
“We’ll need that death ledger,” Dray finally spoke.
“You can’t take it from there,” Tess warned. “Ms. Boyner was more than a little reluctant to even let me see it, let alone borrow it.”
No one responded, though there was more than one pitying glance thrown her way. “What?” Tess said.
“He means to steal it, Tess,” Emmie said.
“Oh. Well, I suppose that makes more sense.”
Ashe, seated to her right, jabbed her playfully with his elbow before pulling her sideways into a bear hug. “I told you! Emmie and I told you all, this girl was clever, didn’t we? She’s just figured out more in a few days than we had in the last few years.”
Tess, embarrassed, felt a sudden urge to downplay her role. “I just had fresh eyes, that’s all. When you’re too involved with something, sometimes its hard to tackle a problem another way. And I only figured it out because of all the information you told me, trusted me with. Otherwise I never would have put any of it together.”
“Too true,” Rosie muttered.
“Give it a rest, Rosie,” Dray said softly, to both Tess and Rosie’s surprise. “No harm’ll come to you if you actually acknowledge that she’s done something here.”
Tess tried to wipe the bewildered expression off her face as Dray rose from the table to pace. Rosie looked stung, and Tess thought for a moment that her eyes were close to watering before she herself rose, with the excuse of clearing the table.
Russ too began to rise. “Customers’ll be coming in soon. Best get ready for them. Ta, Tess.” He winked at her and walked away. She wondered if he meant to go after Rosie and check on her- she hoped he was. As much as they bickered, there was a strong connection between the twins that anyone could see, if they looked hard enough.
Tess turned to Ashe, who had begun to stretch. “I have to put Gowan’s book back, you know. I’m not comfortable keeping it.”
“That’s fine, for now. He can’t be the only one in town with that book, anyways, and besides, it’s most safe where it’s been tucked away for all this time.” Ashe sighed. “Emmie, be a doll and rub this spot on my neck?” He pointed.
Emmie, sitting on Tess’s other side, leaned over past her and carefully swatted Ashe on the back of the head. “There. Did that fix it?” she said sweetly.
“No, oddly enough it didn’t. Dray, stop wearing out their floor and come back for a moment.” He waited until his older brother approached, then said, “I need to make sure we’re in agreement on the next step.”
Fish, still seated across from them, drummed his fingers across the hard surface of the table. His face was pale, his freckles more pronounced in contrast, and he looked nauseous. “It doesn’t have to be you, Dray.”
“It should be me. I know the building best and I’m not willing to let you risk it, Fish. Nor you, Ashe,” he said as his brother began to interject.
“Don’t dismiss us so easily,” Fish countered. “We need to think this through.”
“What’s to think through?” Dray pulled the chair back out and straddled it, both removed and joined to the rest of them. His whole body was taut, his aura literally thrumming with nervous energy. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. We have to seize this before it slips from our grasp.”
“I agree, Dray” Ashe said. “We all want the same thing. But rushing in… when we’ve made rash decisions before, it’s cost us. It’s cost others.” Something unspoken passed among them, a recognition of harm that could never be undone, and Dray’s shoulders seemed heavy with the burden of it. Tess felt, and resisted, the urge to reach out and grasp his hand. Her hand itched from being denied the action, and she blushed and looked down.
“Don’t you see, that’s why it has to be me this time” Dray said, his voice rigid, as if to keep it from faltering. “I’ll not let anyone else do it. And I’ll be careful. I promise. But I must do this.”
He made eye contact first with Fish, then Emmie, and finally Ashe. The brothers leaned closer to one another, and Tess saw them as the opposite sides of the same
coin, both full of life, but Ashe inclined towards using the light to fend off the demons while Dray stayed in the dark as he fought off the anger and despair that threatened to capsize him if he so much as gave it a foothold. Was he so much lighter before this all changed him? Maybe he and Ashe were once more like twins.
Lost in thought, Tess noticed that Dray was staring at her. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I asked if you could tell me where in the shelves the book is being kept.”
“Uh… no.” Tess was mortified that she hadn’t paid closer attention. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching, and the room goes so far back I’m not sure I would be able to tell you even if I was.”
Dray considered, his frame resting heavily on the chair, broad shoulders hunched. “It’s no matter. There’s an organizational structure- I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
So they were really doing this- stealing something that might be the first building block in presenting this whole conspiracy theory to the masses. Tess wondered if she’d become irrational in the way she’d made sense of the information she’d found. How likely were the chances she’d been sucked into the swirling vortex of the Reed brothers without even realizing it? That she would drown with them for something that wasn’t even real? Because she was connected to this now- just knowing about it made her an accomplice. She’d watched enough law enforcement shows with Maggie to know this much.
A thought occurred to Tess. “How often do you think people actually look at that particular ledger?”
Fish scratched his cheek. “Hard to say. Maybe once a year for census, and a couple odd times outside of that? Best guess. Why?”
